We *finally* bought a new house!

Our commutes take us about 45-60 minutes each way … but we really like where we currently live and well, we weren’t quite sure what we wanted to move. The city and housing market are different from the cities where we’ve previously lived. And, while one community might have the walkability we wanted, it was too urban for our likes or the houses/taxes were more than we wanted to spend. Another area would be too suburban for our likes and offer no walkability (and probably wouldn’t shorten the time of our commutes too much, so what’s the point?). We spent 2 years mulling these problems over. We looked in so many different areas and at all different types of houses. The houses we liked didn’t exist in the areas we wanted to live, and we found communities we liked, but then the houses weren’t right. It was a conundrum, of epic middle-class, indecisive, too-many-options-for-our-own-good proportions.

But then it happened. We looked at this house in July and it was a definite NO. We passed. Listed too high for the amount of work we would want to put into it … it was a hard no, don’t want it, pretty boring, not-sure-we’d-even-like-living-here feeling. We actually stood in this house for 45 minutes, talking to our realtor about a different house. A different house that we saw a couple weeks before, but only interested in if we could get some quotes on some major renovations first. (Major, like tear the back addition off and re-build a new addition to the tune of a lot of money and time.) So we proceeded with that inquiry for about 3 days … until someone else bought the house before we could get the contractors out there to quote the work.

Also, by now, the other house we didn’t want (definite no, hard pass, too boring), was also off the market.

Ugh. So, then we turned to building. We said, lets look into designing and building. Then, we can get what we want … but not in the area we want. But, maybe we’ll try county living. Maybe we can even put in a pool and a putting green? Who knows, but we can dream. Especially considering that idea was tossed around for a good month and is still brought up, but we’re just not sure it’s for us, quite yet (eventually, maybe).

Then, this house popped back on the market. And the new price was almost right. Lets go look at it again. I drew Patrick some pretty awesome drawings (read: a 4 year old could have drawn them and he laughed in my face … but they were on graph paper) about adding some outdoor space and finishing the basement and he reluctantly agreed to revisit the house. So we went to the open house the following Sunday. We were the only ones that showed up and the selling agent talked to us the whole time (exhausting). But, our visions of renovating this house would work; there is plenty of space and we can make it someplace we want to live. Most importantly, the location is within what we longingly called the “magic circle” while house hunting. It’s walkable, conveniently located for our commutes, and a we’re banking on it being a solid investment in an area that has a solid history in the city.

So, here we go. We bought the house. Inspections were mostly clean. It’s all ours. (Along with the leaves.)

The house we didn’t want, but now we own it, and we’re going to make it awesome.The multiple, gorgeous oak giants in our yard drop a lot of acorns and leaves.(Just ONE of the drawings I used to show Patrick the house’s potential. FYI, He added the birds.)

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